A progress photo

 I'm still three pattern-repeats (12 rows) from where I divide for the sleeves, but here is Chalcedony so far:

This is a pattern from an older issue of Kitty, it's by Pam Sluter. I'm actually using the "make" of yarn (if not the exact color) recommended for it - that's rare for me, because I often go for a more-affordable option or whatever catches my fancy. 

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Lots of fireworks in the neighborhood tonight. We are one of the few towns in the area that has not outlawed fireworks from being shot off within city limits (I think someone on the city council actually operates one of the fireworks stands and that's why). I'm less anxious about it this year because we've had abundant rain; a few years it's been droughty and I worried about my lawn (or the accumulated pecan tree crud on my roof) getting set on fire by a stray bottle rocket.

This year, it's mostly noise. Last night it was cut short as we got a thunderstorm that started around 9 pm, so tonight people are apparently shooting off the ones they couldn't last night and it's been very loud. I'm tired and would LIKE to go to bed but I also suspect I won't sleep much until they quit.

At least one of the groups that's setting them off has some teen/tween kids and hopefully the parents will push them to wrap it up at a reasonable hour. 

But I don't like the noises, loud sounds startle me, and this year there's one kind that sounds like (at least the movie/tv show version of) automatic-weapon fire and that's unsettling. I'm sure the dogs and cats in the neighborhood are not liking it; it's been pretty constant since about 7 pm. 

I think about how when I was a kid, it was different. "Personal" fireworks were all but outlawed in Ohio- you could have sparklers, yeah, and those cruddy little "black snake" things that just stunk of sulfur and made a squiggle of ash. More intensive fireworks COULD be bought, but you had to sign an affidavit claiming they were for out of state use. (A few years, my dad did buy them, and did sign the affidavit, even though he was going to shoot them off in the yard). They were mostly little things like bottle rockets and Catherine wheels but it still made me Anxious because I was a rule-following child and I felt like him lying to the fireworks guy was wrong. And it didn't help when he jokingly said "if the police come you need to warn me" (when in reality, if they did, they'd probably either pretend they didn't see anything, or at the worst, give him a warning to be safe). 

I never cared for it much. I used to joke that "love of setting off fireworks is a Y chromosome trait" but I've met XX people who liked them and XY people who hated them so it's not that. I think in my dad's case it was that more dangerous things were done/were available when he was a kid - when he was a teenager, they lived right on the shore of Lake Michigan, and you could shoot stuff off from the beach, and if it went a little wild it would land in the lake and extinguish itself. 

One year when we visited my uncle at his beach cabin, my dad bought some big bottle rockets and they made a big wooden trough sort of thing that they angled up so they could shoot them out over the lake and that was okay - but I'm still not really a fan of "homebrew" fireworks. I like the big municipal displays - when I was a kid we could see them from my bedroom window, so we didn't even have to worry about mosquito bites, and a few years when I was quite young we went out to Blossom, which had a pretty spectacular concert and fireworks display. 

Here, you have to drive out to the casino to see them, and I'd rather not do that - I do not like driving after dark, and I especially don't like driving out there on what's a big "party night" (we have a lot of drunk driving accidents here). So I mostly do without now.